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Luise Rainer was born into a Jewish family in Dusseldorf, Germany, on 12th January 1910. When she was a teenager she appeared in her first movie. She made four films in Europe but when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party gained power she emigrated to the United States.

In 1935 she appeared in Escapade (1935). During the making of the film she met and married the writer, Clifford Odets.
Rainer received an Oscar for her performance in her second American movie, The Great Ziegfeld (1936). She also won the the award for best actress the following year in the The Good Earth (1937). Rainer therefore became the first two-time Oscar winner in the two major acting categories.

A non-conformist actress, Rainer refused to accept the values of Hollywood. In 1937 Rainer had to be forced by Louis Mayer to receive her Oscar. She later claimed that: "For my second and third pictures I won Academy Awards. Nothing worse could have happened to me."

Rainer was unhappy with the films that MGM forced her to do after The Good Earth and she abandoned acting in the early 1940s. Rainer was later encouraged out of retirement to appear in The Gambler (1997).

 

 

 

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